


080824

by meltingheart



Series: favorites [2]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Love Like Oxygen Era, M/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 00:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20417024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meltingheart/pseuds/meltingheart
Summary: Everybody say no, no, no, no.





	080824

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something a little bit shorter to unwind with. Something I didn't have to overthink lol. The idea took hold randomly, and I let it go wherever, even though it's not that great or that long. Guess the referenced song...?
> 
> As a notice for whoever reads this, Summer of SHINee (@summerof5hinee on twitter) _did_ just finish our first project but the people voted for it so we are going to be doing another event for Halloween. :-] It'll stay lighthearted in tone and if you've got free time I encourage you to follow along and take a look once it opens. Thanks!

“I just don’t get you.”

Jonghyun’s voice is smooth and buttery, obviously fresh from his vocal exercises. It’s brazen, light and high in a way that doesn’t belie the growling hook he’s going to sing in front of a handful of fans in half an hour. 

Jinki would recognize it anywhere, by now, after the years they’d spent training together. 

He doesn’t turn around, though, even when Jonghyun audibly stomps forward and continues, much closer to Jinki’s ear, “really, Jinki. We’re singing live in thirty, called back for rehearsal in ten, and this is what you’re out here doing to yourself.”

Jinki takes another drag off his cigarette, sighs out the smoke through his nose. Seoul’s congested streets crawl with rush-hour traffic, and he stares down at it all, wrist curved over the rail. Up here, at the top of the MNet building, the vehicles look ant-sized. He twitches his fingers and lets ash rain down on the lines of cars. He imagines for a moment it’s not just perspective that makes it look like a scene in a movie, wonders off-handedly what the plot of a movie like that would be. 

It’s a fact that Jonghyun gets mad when he isn’t paid attention to, especially when he _ wants _to be paid attention to, and making Jonghyun mad is never the first thing on Jinki’s to-do list. He glances over at his bandmate. Jonghyun’s eyes no longer look towards him, if they had in the first place. Instead, they’re turned out onto the same streets Jinki was just looking at, shifting restlessly over the scene laid out far below. Jinki wonders what he sees in it, and almost asks, almost shares without reason that the way it’s so busy that it seems slow reminds him of their own careers at the moment. 

But he doesn’t. He lifts his hand off the rail and breathes in. Jonghyun must notice the movement, must hear Jinki below the rumble of the air-conditioning units behind them and the streets before them, because his eyes snap to Jinki’s lips, still pursed around the filter of the cigarette. It feels too foreign inside his mouth, suddenly, now that Jonghyun’s attention has been called to it. Self-conscious, Jinki drops his hand again. 

“Doing what?” He laughs, awkward. “Making my clothes smell like smoke? Ah, I guess the coordi noonas will get mad…” The lighthearted tone of his voice peters off into the growing tension between them, after Jonghyun doesn’t even crack a smile. Jinki knows it’s Jonghyun who would get mad, who _ is _getting mad, and though he doesn’t say anything yet, Jinki knows he will. The feeling, clawed and sharp, crawls up his back.

There’s a time and place for every conversation, every argument. Looking into the sparks of anger in the dark depths of Jonghyun’s gaze and the set of his jaw, Jinki wonders if the time and place is really right this second, with their time so limited. Right this second, when they’ll have to go smile in front of the older fans who managed to stick around with them for the first couple months, until their second music video. He doesn’t want it to be now. 

“You’re the hyung,” Jonghyun starts abruptly, sounding almost desperate. It’s a harsh contrast to the way his eyebrows furrow and his eyes seem to droop as much as they grow wider with the emotions he’s fighting to show. When he looks back on the moment in the future, seeing Jonghyun with such an incredulous expression on his face, looking silly with his hair halfway styled up and halfway flattened onto his head, stage clothes slightly mussed up and ill-fitting on his skinny form, Jinki knows he’ll laugh fondly about it. For now, the mood feels a little too serious. “So why am I the one always trying to take care of you, huh?” 

Letting the hint of a smile press into his cheeks, Jinki tries to divert the topic again, saying back, “If I’m the hyung, talk to me like it sometimes.”

Jonghyun snorts at that, eyebrows drawing even further together. “As if you even qualify as a hyung, being so irresponsible with yourself.” He snaps his head back towards the open air in front of them, leaning forward to rest both his forearms against the rails. He looks thinner than he did last year, definitely, but less than he did a couple months ago. Jinki’s heart pulls itself in two directions. He turns his own gaze back towards the ground below. Their new stage shoes, toes scuffed with the practice runs they’d done in them every day for a few weeks already, stand out against the faded gray of the concrete, against the sheer drop-off of the edge of the building. Jinki doesn’t let himself look over it, instead looking up to watch the skyline. Anything to keep some composure. 

“What else should I do?” He asks after a minute of watching the few wispy clouds roll by. When he’s not looking at Jonghyun, not seeing the clarity of expression in his eyes, it feels easier to speak to him about things like this. 

“For what?” Jonghyun asks back, and Jinki hears him kick one of his feet against the pavement. 

“Stress,” Jinki explains, flicking his fingers against the cigarette again, letting that portion of it go unsmoked. He isn’t in the mood for it anymore. “You’re filing a complaint against the leader, he should hear your solutions too.”

Jonghyun hums, and Jinki glances over to see a frown that reads more like sadness on his face. It makes the little dips in his facial structure more prominent, shadows growing where the planes wrinkle. Jinki hopes when he’s older, his face won’t have more wrinkle lines from frowning than from smiling; he doesn’t know where the thought came from, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. He shoves it away to the back of his mind for later when Jonghyun speaks again. “Is it that bad, being the leader?” 

With Jonghyun’s eyes still turned away from him, locked onto some far-off scene below them that Jinki wouldn’t be able to find if he tried, all he can do is respond verbally. “I don’t know.” 

“If my solution was to help you more, what would you say to that?” Jonghyun muses, eyes meeting Jinki’s again for a mere second before skittering away again. Like he’s nervous. Jinki can’t imagine why, and then wonders why it means so much more to him if Jonghyun is than if anyone else had been. 

The careful distance between them when he says this makes Jinki want nothing more than to sigh and lean closer, bridge the gap between their hearts without having to do so with words, but he doesn’t, not now. He just studies Jonghyun’s profile, a proud and straight nose set against a strong jawline, hair curling over his neck and sideburns brushing his cheekbones. The wind ruffles it slightly, but it stays mostly in place, the scant amount of product in it holding fast. 

Jonghyun helps him all the time, Jinki knows. More than even Jonghyun himself is aware of. He admires Jonghyun, really, because Jinki can’t do half of the things he does - can’t be Taemin’s steadfast encourager when it comes to school and everything else; can’t make time to practice his vocals or his dancing near as hard as Jonghyun seems to every day; can’t act naturally or speak for the group in front of a microphone without stuttering through half of his words. He can only be himself, however much that counts when his whole career rests on being what seems like someone else. 

“I would say you already help me more than anyone else,” Jinki admits, “and thinking about that guilts me enough to make me want to stop smoking, anyways.” 

“Good.” Jonghyun breathes in and out a few times, then frowns again and continues, “not that you’re guilty, I mean. I want to help you, not guilt you. But it’d be good if you didn’t want to smoke anymore.” 

Jinki flicks the cigarette again, noticing that it’s almost burnt out. He’s not going to get a good pull off it now anyways. Especially not after this conversation he's had with Jonghyun. He lets it fall from between his fingers, watches it disappear into the distance between their floor and the pavement below. He’ll never know how long it takes to hit the bottom, but Jinki guesses that it doesn’t matter. “It would seem hypocritical if a picture of me smoking started circulating right after we shot a no-smoking campaign video, anyways,” he jokes, wry, and puts his now-empty hand into the same pocket where his half-full cigarette carton would've been if he hadn’t left it in his home pants. 

Jonghyun’s watch beeps right as he opens his mouth to reply, and he glances away from Jinki’s now-empty hand to check it with a frown on his face. “We’re supposed to be getting back,” he mutters before pressing a few buttons on the thing. Jinki presumes it’s to turn the alarm off, and turns without checking to see if Jonghyun will follow him—he already knows he will. 

They walk towards the door back inside together, a little out of step with each other. Jinki thinks of how he doesn’t have to think to match steps with his childhood friends back in his hometown. Maybe someday they’ll be like that, too. As he opens the door, Jonghyun slips in front of him, showing him his wide back as he starts to lead the way. 

In the end, it’s only for him to save face and have some confidence when he says over his shoulder, “We’re still young, and you have a better voice than anyone else in our group. So don’t ruin it, even if you don’t just for SHINee or just for me. Okay, hyung?” His voice wavers a bit at the beginning and even more by the end, and Jinki sighs with a smile on his face as he follows Jonghyun two steps behind. Always with his heart on his sleeve, he supposes, always trying to keep them all on their best for their team. 

Jinki doesn’t think about what he wants to think about: that maybe Jonghyun should’ve been born four months before him instead of the other way around, and maybe Jonghyun is more suited to be a hyung that takes care of him instead of that role being left to Jinki’s lackluster self. And maybe Jinki should start trying a little harder to turn into what he should be, in a way that’s realer than just putting on a mask every time he has to think about being SHINee. Instead, he smiles a little more, and says with that same smile present in his own voice, “If it’s for you, anything.” 

\--

“Have you heard this one, guys?” Jonghyun asks, holding up his flip phone and pressing play on what turns out to be a tinny, poorly-recorded American rock song. Taemin’s shoulders visibly draw up in a cringe from the front seat as he hears the guitar solos fade into a high-pitched rap verse, and Jinki feels the headache pound heavier into his skull than it was five minutes ago. 

Kibum crows out a laugh loud enough to drown out the music. “_ That _mess? Really, Jjong? Turn it off!” 

Jonghyun pouts, hand dropping onto his lap. Jinki feels his shoulder shift with the motion, as they’re sitting so close that Jonghyun may as well be on top of him. He wishes the company would spare enough to give them more than one van, or at least a more spacious one. The close quarters are not only claustrophobic, they also make the heat of Jonghyun’s body radiate into Jinki’s space, and it’s too hot to be bearable. “I think it’s badass,” he mutters under his breath, voice wounded before he turns to Jinki with renewed vigor. His eyes seem to take up Jinki’s whole field of vision, sparkling with the reflections of the streetlights they fly past. “What do _ you _think about it, Jinki-hyung?” 

Jinki shrugs, trying not to linger on the drag of his shirt sleeve against Jonghyun’s. “I think we should focus on our songs. Remember how the most important one goes?” Jonghyun breathes in to spit out a retort when Jinki continues, smirk blooming on his face as he breaks into quiet song, “_ Hyeya~ _” 

Maybe he deserves it a little when Jonghyun veers away from him and pushes him into Minho with both hands. “Of course I know that one, you dork! I didn’t forget the song we performed two hours ago either, jeez.” 

Jinki laughs in a quiet way, looping his hands around Jonghyun’s wrists and pulling his hands off of Jinki. He lets his grip stay on Jonghyun a little longer than necessary, smiling at Jonghyun until he smiles back, reluctantly, slowly. Minho snores behind him, and Jinki averts his eyes from Jonghyun’s face, not wanting to be too much. 

The mood slips into an easier silence than it had been between them earlier that day, Minho’s snuffles and their manager’s infrequent humming providing a comfortable atmosphere to it. Jinki’s right hand is still looped around Jonghyun’s thin left wrist, and he glances at it out of the corner of his eye. Jonghyun’s hand looks big where it sits on his own thigh, phone held loosely in his stubby fingers. It would be easy to slide his hand down Jonghyun’s wrist and grasp his palm in Jinki’s own, but Jinki doesn’t let himself think about it further than that, conscious of the way his ears immediately heat up.

“But really,” Jonghyun says after a while of staring out the window and losing himself in his own thoughts, face turning towards Jinki again. “Did you like the song?” 

Jinki snorts. “No. Where’d you even find it?”

“It’s on the Billboard Hot 100! In America,” Jonghyun adds, as if Jinki wouldn’t have known that. He taps his fingers against his thigh, a small gesture that Jinki isn’t sure of the meaning behind. Jinki feels the way his tendons shift under the skin of his wrist. “I was just thinking that we should always pay attention to what’s big.”

“You think the next big trend in music is going to be that?” Jinki almost laughs, voice turning warm with restrained mirth. He almost hopes the other members don’t overhear their conversation, that they’re all still asleep - they would tease Jonghyun too much, until he huffs and cries out with it, but Jinki understands what he’s getting at. Jonghyun whines out a no anyways, and Jinki says, “Your thinking's right, though.”

The corners of Jonghyun’s lips turn up at that. His expression stays much the same as they pull into the parking lot of their under-sized apartment building, and as they pile out of the van and loiter behind their manager while he swipes their keycard. Jinki wonders why it is that a small bit of praise from him made Jonghyun that pleased with himself. 

His palm still feels warm from where it sat against Jonghyun’s skin in the van, and Jinki tries to ignore it as he hangs back from the rest of their group. No particular reason, he says when Taemin asks him why he’s drifted to the back of their little line. Taemin shrugs, still bleary with sleep, and walks on, leaving him alone. Jinki fishes in the right-hand pocket of his pants as the rest of them approach the elevators, and casually drops the pack of cigarettes in the trash can tucked behind the hallway’s vending machine. The rest of what comes after the action won’t be that easy, and the way the beginnings of withdrawal symptoms have already curled up in his joints for a couple hours now proves it to him, but. Jinki thinks about the expression Jonghyun gets when he’s proud and happy, the smile that takes up his whole face. It might be worth the struggle if he gets to see it more often. 


End file.
